National Post editorial board: Yesterday’s Bloc Québécois

To understand just how moribund the Bloc Québécois has become, study the results of its leadership race, which concluded on the weekend with the selection of Daniel Paillé, a former BQ MP from the Montreal riding of Hochelaga.

In May, the Bloc had 50,000 members. By voting day on Sunday, it had 36,000. That means that in just seven months, it has lost more than a quarter of its rank-and-file, the people who are the backbone of any election campaign — canvassing support, making calls, putting up lawn signs, arranging voters’ rides to the polls and so on.

On top of that, just 39% of Bloc members bothered to vote in the contest. Mr. Paille earned 7,868 votes. His chief rival, Maria Mourani (one of just four Bloc MPs to retain her seat in May’s federal election), received only 4,972.

For contrast’s sake, consider that the Alberta provincial Tories held a leadership race in September to replace outgoing leader and premier Ed Stelmach. In the first round of balloting in that race, nearly 60,000 members voted (a total that was considered low at the time because five years earlier, when Mr. Stelmach was selected to replace then-premier Ralph Klein, nearly 100,000 Tories had bought memberships and cast ballots).

The Bloc’s disastrous performance in the May election, in conjunction with the lack of interest in its leadership contest, supports the prevailing view that the separatist threat is withering. Just 300 members showed up in a Montreal hotel meeting room on Sunday to listen to the leadership vote results and hear Mr. Paillé’s speech. Only about 500 bothered tuning in to the web broadcast of the leadership debate. (It’s also notable that the Bloc’s provincial sister party, the Parti Québécois, is third in most polls, too.)

What can the federal government do to hasten the trend? The best policy is to simply ignore the separatists — and thereby reduce their ability to play the victim card.

In fact, the Tories’ move to end taxpayer subsidies to political parties already has hurt the Bloc more than any other party. Over the past five years, the BQ has relied on handouts from Canadian taxpayers for between 80% and 95% of its annual operating funds. Simply sticking with the promise to cut per-vote grants to the Bloc (and all the other parties) will slowly choke off the party’s air supply. That should relegate the party to obscurity, if not oblivion — even if the cause of separatism stumbles on.